Open Sprinkler Bee 2.0 Working as Remote Station

[jcislowski]

Hi Ray,

Just wondering if the Open Sprinkler Bee 2.0 will work as a remote station with the Open Sprinkler DC being the master?

Thanks,

Jason

[Ray]

Technically it can, but at the moment OSBee’s API (specifically, the manual station run API):
https://github.com/OpenSprinkler/OSBeeWiFi-Firmware/blob/master/docs/OSBeeAPI1.0.0.pdf
is different from OpenSprinkler’s API, so OpenSprinkler’s firmware as is can’t switch OSBee’s zones. But what you asked is a good point and I can definitely add the manual station run API (specifically, the /cm command) to OSBee firmware and that way it’s compatible with OpenSprinkler.

[Guy]

I am looking to use a latching valve to manually turn on/off the main water to a building. I currently have an OpenSprinkler (normal, not DC) and control the zones through my home automation (HomeSeer). If I can setup an OpenSprinkler Bee as a remote station to my OpenSprinkler this is exactly the functionality I need.

Do I understand the initial request to work as I described? Realistically how long should I expect before this feature is available? I can start running wires and installing valves, but don’t want to get too excited about new capabilities.

Thanks,

Guy

[Ray]

Actually since OpenSprinkler supports HTTP station, you can already use OSBee as a remote station, because you can send HTTP GET command to it to open/close a valve. So the easiest way is to set an OpenSprinkler station as a HTTP station, and type down the command needed to open/close a valve on OSBee. The OSBee API is available at:
https://github.com/OpenSprinkler/OSBeeWiFi-Firmware/tree/master/docs

[jet11x]

Wired my OSBee in today and set it up to be controlled from Pi OpenSprinker.
Ray – you produce great products and interesting to know how your clever circuitry works and be able to modify software/firmware if I want to.

Took me a little while to work out how to control OSBee from my Pi OpenSprinker, so thought I’d share the details.

In the API document that Ray references above you’ll find the manual command to start a zone and I found I can send the command with zero duration to turn off the zone.
For the on command I put in : rp?dkey=opendoor&pid=77&zbits=1&dur=600
This will turn on zone 1 for 600 seconds.
For the off command I put in: rp?dkey=opendoor&pid=77&zbits=1&dur=0

[Ray]

Glad you figured it out, and thanks for sharing the details.

[Roger]

jet11x — thank you for figuring out how to do this. I have a similar situation and was wondering how to get this to work. What I’d really like is to be able to use some kind of variable to insert the run time into the “On” command, so I can take advantage of the ETo calculation to drive the timing.

[In my situation I have an extensive sprinkler and drip irrigation system covering several acres. Since the original installation 15-20 years ago, lots of landscaping and paving have been added. The result is that I have no feasible way to run new zone wiring to additional valves. OSBee came to the rescue! I’m using what was the wiring for one of the zones to carry 24VAC (continuously on) to a 24VAC->5VDC step down power convertor (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RE6QN4U) to power the OSBee. Both devices are mounted in a small Bud box that sits on top of a 3′ piece of plastic conduit. The old valve was replaced with three DC latching valves, allowing me to add two more zones. I intend to do this again to split another zone. Fortunately, I have an overabundance of wifi signal covering the entire property. The importance of your work is that I can control the entire system from a single interface in OpenSprinkler. Again, thank you for sharing your work with all of us!]

Rog

[Ray]

If you are already using an external script to send command to OSBee, you can simply call the opensprinkler weather server to get the watering percentage, and multiply your water time by that percentage, and send it to OSBee. Basically:
– make a call to:
http://weather.opensprinkler.com/weather3.py?loc=your_location_name_or_gps_coord&wto=”baseETo”:your_baseline_eto_value
this is the API to get ET value. the return message looks something like this:
&scale=19&tz=32&sunrise=336&sunset=1218&eip=2923395235&rawData=…
the ‘scale’ is the watering percentage
– multiply that scale / 100 by your duration, that would be the actual run time, then send it to OSBee using the API call described earlier in the thread.

[Roger]

Thank you, Ray. What I’ve been doing is having OS drive the Bee, using the HTTP variant of a valve zone. I’ll look at changing that to use an external script. I probably want to do that anyway, because I want to accumulate ETo over multiple days (since I don’t run any zone every day).

Rog

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